Japan Fashion Week: The Show Must Go On

How do you celebrate creativity and clothing in the midst of a massive disaster?

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For Japan's leading designers, buyers, and editors, it proved a difficult question in the weeks following the massive earthquake that shook (literally and figuratively) the Asian country. Initially, the answer was to cancel the biannual Fashion Week, which was slated to kick-off a week after the initial 9M quake. "There were several major problems that made it almost impossible to hold the event," says Reiko Kuwabara, who usually covers JFW for trendspotting company WGSN, noting that the rolling blackouts "affected the trains, traffic lights, and shipping operations, and many people were left in limbo."

Although with the threat of substantial aftershocks there were safety concerns, organizers saw another reason to scale back the festivities: solidarity with the disaster's victims. "We postponed our fashion show and thought it might not be appropriate to organize a fashion show using quite some electricity while evacuees are suffering [in] their daily life," explained Hokuto Katsui and Nao Yagi, designers of Mintdesigns. Kuwabara pointed to jishuku (the Japanese word for self-restraint), which was "spreading across the country," making it "inappropriate to actively promote fashion at the time."

But that soon gave way to the belief that people had to do something—anything—to keep up morale and help support the already-weak Japanese economy. "We were undecided on what to do when the actual earthquake hit, due to the shock of what happened," says Steven Hall and Yurika Ohara, designers of In-Process by Hall Ohara, which showed its fall '11 collection in mid-April. "But as time went on and speaking to many people about the situation, we decided to show." It was also a nod to the country's fashion industry itself, much of which is based in up north. "The retail, knitting, textiles, and manufacturing businesses in the Tohoku area have been hit quite badly. To support these businesses, brands need to keep promoting and we—as consumer[s]—need to continue buying their products," says Kuwabara.

Those who went ahead with their shows didn't ignore the disaster. Somarta scaled back its presentation, Araisara changed its set-up as to maximize the use of natural light and minimize the reliance on electrical power, and at Mintdesigns attendees who donated money on the way out received a gift bag (in total, they raised more than $2,500). The total number of runway shows decreased, with many labels coming up with new ways to show their fall '11 collections (among them, releasing lookbooks, staging intimate presentations, offering previews to just press and buyers, and even streaming footage online). But that didn't stop people from supporting their favorite brands: According to fashion publicist Miyuki Abico, "The number of people attending shows did not change so much."

Yes, it's just fashion, but for many designers, showing their fall '11 collections also meant showing that Japan may be down, but it's not out. As Ohara and Hall explained, "We wanted to help show that the Japanese fashion industry has the ability to step up and show we are still organized and the situation is more stable than people think."